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Shell Chambers is my first work for a standard chamber
combination in over ten years, and deals unusually directly (for
me) with the Western musical canon - not in vocabulary, but in
terms of rhetoric and structure.

The eight movements range in length from thirty seconds to nearly
ten minutes. The three longest explore common 19th-century formal
models: a rapid Scherzo with several contrasting Trios (each
omitting one member of the quartet to create a literal trio); an
Adagio cast as a set of variations; and a robust Allegro in
sonata form. However, each of these models is split across two
movements, in such a way that the overall structure is turned in
on itself. The four Interludes are brief character pieces, and
mirror the internal divisions of the Scherzo in being scored for
different trios; while the final movement recalls each of the
preceding seven in miniature.

The title refers to marine animals such as the nautilus, which in
the course of their lifetimes assemble a spiral shell made up of
chambers of increasing size. In a similar way, this work contains
organic growth within an exoskeleton of elegant patterning.